It isn't easy being a standout when you're next to a woman with
starspangled cleavage and high-cut shorts who lifts trucks, leaps tall
buildings, deflects bullets with her bracelets and still has energy left
to boogie at the discos. But Lyle Waggoner, on-camera friend of Wonder
Woman on the CBS series, does it. Which has got to prove, among other
things, that he is not just another pretty face.

Waggoner, a one-time
state high-school wrestling champ and Playgirl magazine centerfold
model, is 6-feet-4, 200 pounds, professional, ambitious and one of the
best-looking faces on television today. He plays the part of Steve
Trevor Jr. on The New Adventures of Wonder Woman-a role that has
diminished over the seasons, some say, because Waggoner is simply
prettier than Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman) and she knows it.

That, however, must remain
in the realm of speculation, since Miss Carter won't talk about anyone
else on the show and Waggoner limits himself to a very slight smile and
the comment, relative to' his vanishing role, that "I may have become
the highest-paid actor per word on television."

For those-either mentally or chronologically over the age of 12-who do
not watch The New Adventures of Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor Jr. is a
highranking official in the Inter-Agency Defense Command, a
Washington-based intelligence agency.

Diana Prince (Wonder Woman's street disguise) is a member of that
agency. On camera, at least, there is a hint of romance between Trevor
and WW, although it can never come to fruition, don't you see, because
WW would lose her immortality and her superstrength, which is a high
price to pay for love.

Off camera, the relationship between Waggoner and the star-minded Miss
Carter simply does not exist. And while they decline to discuss each
other, outsiders are not so timid. A former associate on the show says
Waggoner took the second-banana role because at least it offered what he
felt was a costarring position.

"That may have been true at first," the ex-associate adds, "in the days
when Lynda still said please and thank you. Then one day someone told
her she was a star, and she simply didn't want anyone else in the same
scene.

"She feels Lyle brings the show's energy level down. As for him-well,
you can't say anything bad about Lyle because the only time he ever
becomes angry is when he's ignored. Maybe he's angry now, I don't know.
But at least he isn't the one who throws his hairbrush across the stage
when he is."

Waggoner's publicist, Tom Masters, says that because his client's role
has been reduced so drastically, "Lyle isn't on the set often enough to
form a relationship with Lynda, good or bad. They're cordial and that's
it."

Obviously unhappy with his diminishing part, Waggoner will still not
snipe at the show's lead. "Just say," he suggests with a slight smile,
"the spotlight is not willing to be shared."

Kansas-born Waggoner had been on The Carol Burnett Show for seven years
when he decided that his role as an announcer/ regular was too limiting.
"I was a convenience," he says, "and not an actor. I wanted to act." The
fact that millions of viewers saw him each week was impressive, but even
more compelling was a desire to move on and up, and so he left the show.

It was during this period that he posed for Playgirl's centerfold, which
he'd rather not remember. "At least," he says, "it was during their
early days when they didn't show everything. There was a certain
modesty."

Then he met Stanley Ralph Ross. who happened to be writing the pilot
movie for Wonder Woman. "I liked Lyle right away," Ross says. "He was a
guy who could make fun of himself, who never took himself too
seriouslyand on television, that's rare. He could play the part of
Steven Trevor with a twinkle in his eyes."

Ross was so impressed that, as he was describing the part of Trevor in
his script, he wrote that the character "was jut of jaw and strong of
mien, a Lyle Waggoner type. (Better yet, get Lyle Waggoner)" They did,
to Ross's amazement. It's the only actor he ever recommended who
actually got the job.

"It's a fun role," says Waggoner. "There's no big message, no symbolism.
Sure it's a cartoon, but everything on television is a cartoon, because
it's escapism. Wonder Woman just happened to have been in the comics."

Waggoner plays his part tongue-incheek, somewhere between farce and
reality. "I can't get too campy," he says, "because that's farce-and how
realistic can you get with a gal who picks up 10-ton boulders? It's hard
sometimes not cracking up, the situations get so bizarre."

He doesn't like the idea that he is once more a "convenience," and would
rather have a bigger role on this show or, better yet, his own series
that would combine humor and adventure. Waggoner considers Wonder Woman
a steppingstone to something better.

"But then," he shrugs, "I don't knock what I'm doing. It's an on-the-air
show and I'm a working actor. There aren't all that many around. When
you take a role, you accept the territory."

That he is itching for something better is not a new condition in the
life of the actor, who is over 40 and looks 32. He was on his way up at
General Motors years ago when he decided desk work wasn't for him; he
quit and began selling encyclopedias from door to door. "I wanted
applause," he says, "and I wasn't getting it."

Selling at least provided an audience of one. Waggoner believes it
helped him as an actor. He still tells aspiring young actors that if
they want to act, they've got to learn to sell, because that's what
acting is all about-selling a character.

As an encyclopedia salesman, he was told time and again he was just too
handsome for that and he ought to be in movies. After a while he became
convinced they might be right and left St. Louis, where he was living,
for Los Angeles. Later he was joined by his wife, Sharon, a former
beauty queen. They've been, married for 18 years and have two young
sons. Waggoner pursued an acting career the way he pursues everything
elsewith quiet determination. He corralled an agent, went to acting
school, did commercials, acted in summer stock and finally landed the
role- of announcer on The Carol Burnett Show. They were looking for the
"Rock Hudson type," and the producer Who hired Waggoner took one look at
him and, even before an audition, decided that if he could talk, he had
the job.

Previously he had tried
out for the role of Batman on the old series, a part won by Adam West.
Sharon was just as glad that he didn't get it. "Can you imagine," she
asks whimsically, "running around in that cape all the time?"

Even though he didn't get
the part. Waggoner was noticed by Charles FitzSimons, who was associate
producer on Batman. So impressed was FitzSimons with Waggoner that he
recommended him to others, out of which sprang the part on The Carol
Burnett Show. FitzSimons went on to become producer of The New
Adventures of Wonder Woman and was instrumental in hiring Waggoner for
the part of Steve Trevor.

"He's a marvelous, talented man," says FitzSimons, "who is always on
time, does his work well and gets along with everyone. I see a great
future for him in romantic comedy. Once he gets the right kind of break,
he'll have a series of his own."

Waggoner isn't the type to sit and wait for breaks. He isn't even the
kind to sit much. During the year and a half between Carol Burnett and
Wonder Woman, he went on the road with theatrical groups and has played
in "Teahouse of the August Moon," "Born Yesterday," "Boeing-Boeing" and
other plays, and he has made guest appearances in a dozen television
shows.

On the road he kept busy
between performances by learning to play the guitar and the harmonica,
by teaching himself tricks with the bullwhip and by learning to ride a
unicycle. He has also created and is marketing his own line of sports
shirts and has designed and built 35 pieces of furniture around the
house.

The "house," by the way, is not one of your cozy, ordinary suburban
residences. It is a massive, high-ceilinged, 7000-square-foot castlelike
structure on a hill overlooking the San Fernando valley.

It is a measure of Waggoner's restless nature-the nature that drives him
into the spotlight and keeps him busy even when he's resting-that he
lives in the castle on the hill.

He was residing in the flatlands down the block when the big house was
being built. " I watched it going up," he says. "and I loved it. 1
decided then and there I wanted it."

Even after he acquired it, he wasn't satisfied. Not too many months had
passed when he was already adding another room.

Waggoner considers the $1-millionplus home an investment as well as a
place to live. Investments are important to him. He and Sharon, who
sells real estate as a sideline, have other property in Los Angeles and
Phoenix. It was good money-management, he says, that allowed him to quit
The Carol Burnett Show and wait for almost two years before he landed a
new part.

His instinct for future
potential isn't just limited to property, Waggoner adds with a smile. "I
first saw Sharon when she was about 15 and I thought, gosh, what an
investment."

She's happy, too. "I
married a salesman," she says, "and it was the smartest thing I ever
did." She helps Waggoner relax by playing backgammon with him, although
she enjoys raising the stakes a bit. "For instance," she says puckishly,
"I won't cook dinner until I win."

Waggoner is content to
bide his time in a diminishing role. He welcomes the exposure he has
received both as an announcer and as a secondfiddle agent to a
superwoman. Still, he realizes the show is not considered "important" by
industry standards, and he sees hirnself moving on and up.

"Meanwhile," he says,
"I'll hang in there and do my best. They'll remember me someday for my
professionalism." And, possibly, for a quiet determination to occupy a
castle on the top of the hill.

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